Promise
by Kihin Ranno
Summary: -COMPLETE- Do you promise that your kisses will never be a lie?


Promise  
1/1  
by Kihin Ranno  
PG

* * *

_"Do you promise that you love me?"_

* * *

I held you in my arms centuries before you were made.

I fought alongside you when you were a mere child, amused at how alike you and I were. At how delightfully incompetent you were in the beginning just as I had been.

I leapt from the sky and fell to Earth chasing after you as a comet does the night, somehow descending so that I could catch your fall.

I mourned your death before your birth.

I protected you, defended you, cheered you up, tore you down, yelled at you, cried with you, smiled because of you, and dedicated myself to you a millennium before you were meant to exist.

I conceived you in exquisite anguish, knowing the precise moment you were formed within me.

I carried you in my womb for nine months, suffering all the discomforts of pregnancy - heartburn, sleepless nights, hormones, emotional haywire, food cravings and sex cravings.

I told myself it was worth it because I loved you.

I went into labor June 29th at exactly 1:28 in the afternoon.

I endured over sixteen hours of the worst pain of my life, clutching my husband's hand until his fingers broke and screaming to block out Ami's soothing voice which brought me no comfort.

I gave birth to you on June 30th at exactly 6:03 in the morning.

I held you in my arms and stared at the little pink tuft of hair that we cannot trace, noting that you looked a lot like me in my baby pictures.

I smiled for the ever honest cameras and ignorant eyes of friends and family, holding you as a cherished one.

I wiped away my husband's joyous tears, finding paradise in the fact that he is so happy after waiting so long for you.

Now I look into your crib, eyes darker than the scars I bear, the painful innocence of those eyes burning me more than receiving those wounds ever did.

I gaze upon you and I long to feel the warmth in my heart that I feel for everyone else who has ever touched my life with good intentions.

And I feel nothing.

* * *

_"Do you promise that you'll always love me?"_

* * *

I don't mean to feel nothing. I don't mean to be cold.

I want to love you. I really do.

But I look at you and there is nothing but apathy.

I have reached deep within my soul and searched for the love that has to be there.

I must love you.

I gave birth to you.

I loved you before you were born, long ago when you were older.

I have to love you.

I am bound by nature.

I am bound by mantle.

I am bound by what I felt before.

I have no choice in loving you.

It is something I simply have to do as a queen and as a mother and as a child and as a woman and as a solider and as a Messiah and as a Light of Hope and as a human being.

I have to love you.

I feel nothing.

* * *

_"Do you promise it will never change?"_

* * *

I don't know what it means to not a love a person.

I love my friends with all my heart. I would die for them as readily as they would die for me, though they would never allow it. They will always be there for me. I will always be there for them. We are one in the same in that way alone. So it was and so it shall always be.

I love my enemies, trusting that they were misguided and lead down the wrong path. I know they were good once - that they meant well. They simply took a scenic route paved in malice. I can lead them back if they let me lead the way.

I love my people, innocent and trusting in us. Some simply love us back. Some idolize us. Some worship us. And some go mad with obsession of us. But even if they hated me, I would love them. That is who I am.

I love my family who are mostly dead and gone. I love my father for always protecting me and for locking me in my room the day he learned the truth. I love my mother for cooking as much food as I asked for while she tried to make me more than she thought I was. I love my brother, the only one left, who still refuses to believe that his sister was his idol, a girl he may have loved as more than a sister.

I love my husband so much that I cannot bear to put into words.

I love everyone.

I love all.

So why don't I love you?

I did before.

But I don't now.

I feel these things for you...

Or rather I don't feel these things for you...

And I grow weary to my bones from my confusion.

You are my family.

You were my friend.

You were my enemy.

You are one of my people.

You are part of my husband and of myself.

Feel nothing.

* * *

_"Do you promise me that your kisses will never be a lie?"_

* * *

I hold you and wait for a stirring in my chest.

I kiss you and wait for a warmth to fill me up inside.

I bathe you and wait for nostalgia to crack my brittle shell.

I gaze upon you and call you perfection and wait for the feeling behind the false certainty.

I wait...

And wait.

I've waited for awhile now.

And I've tried to figure out what went wrong.

Has history been too altered by my knowing you already?

Are you that same girl I knew or someone else?

Has someone stolen my heart's compassion?

Have I changed so much?

I am so little of what I once was.

I remember then...

When I was carefree and youthful and capricious and silly.

I remember being what I used to be.

What I long to be now.

When did I change?

What made me change?

Why did I have to change?

Did the Great Ice recede only to leave a piece of itself inside me?

Is that my price to pay for resurrecting the entire world?

Is that why a chill has settled in my breast where fire should be?

Perhaps.

I don't know.

Not for sure.

But I do know one thing.

Nothing.

* * *

_"Do you promise?"_

* * *

I took an oath.

I had a vow.

I made a promise.

You asked me to once very long ago.

You asked me to love you.

So sincere.

So hopeful.

So afraid.

I submitted myself to that undertaking without pause.

But I wondered why you felt the need to ask.

I wish I had thought on it.

I wish I had asked you why.

I wish I had told you no.

I took an oath.

I had a vow.

I made a promise.

And now it is broken, shattered like so much bone.

I never meant to hurt you.

I long to have not led you on.

I wish to the heights of heaven and to the depthless hell that I had told you no.

I went against my oath.

I failed in my vow.

I broke my promise.

For once, I am unforgivable.

* * *

_"Do you promise that you love me?"_


End file.
